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So think this through. Say you pay $2k/year for insurance. Before the fine, if you stopped offering insurance, you would save $2k/year. Now, with the fine, you would save only $1k per year. So the fine makes you LESS likely to stop offering insurance. You follow?

As for health care costs skyrocketting, I do agree that costs will continue to go up until we get at least a public option. The pressure from the right forced the left to abandon almost every measure that was designed to prevent the costs from going up. But that's nothing new. Health care costs have doubled every 7 years or so for almost 3 decades straight now. That will likely continue until we do something to change it.

Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2

Originally Posted by reefedjib

It is a big pile of **** on the floor, stinking up Washington, DC, America's toilet.

The broader issues of unlimited federal power with entitlements and the inculcation of corporate interests in our government and the over-use of the Commerce Clause and no balanced budget and and and are all reasons that the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street folks ought to join forces. They are on the same side, as long as the Tea Party agrees to local, not federal, community care (education, welfare, unemployment, retirement and healthcare) and regulation of financial markets and reinstatement of Glass-Steagall, and as long as Occupy Wall Street agrees to local, not federal, community care (education, welfare, unemployment, retirement and healthcare) and a balanced federal budget. It is so easy and would be a significant political force.

You're lumping things together in a weird way. The commerce clause is the primary tool the people have to counteract corporate domination. The strength of the commerce clause is the measure of how much power the people have over corporations. Weakening that means taking power from the people and giving it to the corporations. So lumping together corporate interests with a broad commerce clause is very strange.

Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2

Originally Posted by teamosil

You're lumping things together in a weird way. The commerce clause is the primary tool the people have to counteract corporate domination. The strength of the commerce clause is the measure of how much power the people have over corporations. Weakening that means taking power from the people and giving it to the corporations. So lumping together corporate interests with a broad commerce clause is very strange.

The people, or rather the federal government claiming to be working for the people, are one group that uses the commerce clause for monopoly busting and things like OSHA. The corporations, or rather the federal government claiming to be working for the people but really working for corporations, are another group who uses the commerce clause for their own ends. Just read up on the inanity of Wickard. It has been used to justify the drug war on local non-commercial growers. The Drug War is HUGE business for people in government. Much money in play.

Yep, that's right. And then $8k in 2025. And $16k in 2032. And so on until we get a public option or single payer system in place.

So is your position that the fine should be bigger? Or what exactly?

My position is that we move health care away from employment and towards individuals. Free up the market, dont strangle it. The more health care choices there are the better off consumers tend to be. This law strikes down a number of health care choices from the start. I think thats a bad idea.

Oh yes, put your money where your mouth is, point out to me and everyone else what provisions were struck the from the bill to obtain gop support for this bill. Please be specific and show what legislative language was pulled out. Id like to see it. Dont play the google game either, its your assertion, prove it.

Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2

Originally Posted by Kandahar

No it isn't; the purpose of insurance is to spread the risk among a larger pool of people. What's a scam is charging some people more money for health care, for factors that are completely outside of their control (like being a man or a woman).

Does PPACA require it to be covered? I dunno. If so, IPAB will study it like any other procedure, and it'll soon be phased out anyway since it isn't cost-effective.

If I'm not mistaken, the only things that must be free from the beginning are preventative care services...and that's a good thing. Although I'm all for catastrophic plans, there needs to at least be some free preventative care in there too. Otherwise, people will be less likely to see the doctor until it becomes a much more serious (and expensive) problem.

I'm just using those states as an example of why buying policies across state lines wouldn't work, at least as it's structured now. I'm not referring to those states specifically, or any coverage specifically.

Nice dodge on all the points I made. I suppose that you will fight for lifting the age restrictions as one can not control that anymore than their gender. It never ceases to amaze me that discounts for females on auto insurance, or surcharges for "young" drivers are OK, yet acturial based FACTS must be ingonerd IFF it proves that males must "pay the price" for "fairness". Free preventive care is rediculous, that is a normal routine expense of life, just as tune-ups, oil changes and flat tire repair are NOT covered by auto insurance even under "full coverage". PPACA is 90% income redistribution and a tiny amount of medical care reform.

Last edited by ttwtt78640; 07-01-12 at 05:07 PM.

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” ― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

With all the ink and pixels devoted to the Supreme Court's decision on the ACA this week, there is one criticism that is actually legitimate and Republicans almost never make: who's going to take care of those 30 million insured people? Injecting so many new people into the health care system is going to require more doctors, more nurses, more lab techs, more MRI machines, and more of everything connected with the health-care delivery system. Lots of new doctors are not going to magically appear on Jan. 1, 2014 to take care of these people. In the short term, there will be longer waits to get services. The argument "Why should I have to wait longer to get an appointment with a doctor so some poor person can get medical care?" is callous, but at least it is legitimate, unlike "death panels." (If Democrats were clever, they might respond to remarks about "death panels" by saying: "Who do you want to determine your level of medical care, some pointy-headed Washington bureaucrat who doesn't care whether you live or die or some insurance company executive who actually has a strong preference for you dying as fast as possible?).

In the short run, more doctors from India and nurses from the Philippines could be given visas to come to the United States to take up some of the load. In the longer run, the government could offer financial incentives (such as interest-free loans) to get more students to go to medical school. But that would require expanding the capacity of the nation's medical schools. All of this is doable, but takes time and money. Getting the federal government to do this seems unlikely in the current climate, but states could do some of this to alleviate possible local shortages.

Republicans hate Obama so much, for the sake of hating Obama, and not much else, that it has compromised their ability to think. The ammunition they could have effectively used was right there in front of them the whole time. And in their hatred, they never saw the obvious. And they want to control government? Look, we all know that the Democratic model doesn't work. But look at the Republicans. They have become blathering idiots by clinging to hate. It is obvious that we need a system of government that is free of the idiocy of both major parties.

Re: SCOTUS LIVEBLOG - Obamacare Mandate Survives-Part 2

Yes, the government folded to corporate interests when single payer is the way to go. I am always amused when Congress decides to invite industry leaders for consultation.

Try single payer on AUTO insurance, on a state level first.

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” ― George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman